UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS SCHOOL OF MUSIC

FALL 2019

serenade

KU Jazz: From Underground to Around the World 7Student Success Stories 11

Notre Dame Organist Named Artist-in-Resident 16Remembering KU Brass Choir’s 1964 Southeast Asia Tour 23

3 A Year in Review5 Jayhawks on the Move6 Success in China7 Jazz at KU11 Students in the Spotlight 11 - Organist Competes on International Stage 12 - Dual Music Ed and Pre-Med Major is 2019 Presser Scholar 13 - Afghan Trumpeter's Journey to KU

15 Faculty Research and Accomplishments 15 - Debra Hedden Inducted into KMEA Hall of Fame 16 - Notre Dame Organist Olivier Latry Named Artist-in-Residence 17 - Romantic-Era Music Linked to Real-Life Romantic Entanglement 18 - Blues Scholar Debunks Notion Hokum was Inauthentic 19 - Trombone Trio Expands Repertoire on New Recording 19 - Margaret Marco Makes New Music for the Oboe 20 - Composer Tries to Capture ‘The Music of the Words’

19 Alumni Stories 21 - A Conversation with KU Legend Delores Stevens 22 - Alumni News 23 - Remembering KU Brass Choir’s 1964 Southeast Asia Tour 27 Introducing Development Director Curtis Marsh27 School of Music Donor Support

Serenade Magazine is published once a year for alumni and friends of the University of Kansas School of Music.

Alumni updates can be sent to:KU School of Music

Attn: Office of Communications460 Murphy Hall

1530 Naismith DriveLawrence, KS 66045

For more information call (785) 864-9742 or e-mail musicnews@ku.edu

DEANRobert WalzelEDITORChristine Metz HowardDESIGNERTiana LawsonCONTRIBUTORS Rick HellmanChristine Metz HowardPROOFREADERJanet Diehl Corwin

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PHOTOSPablo CabreraWally Emerson Luke JordanChristine Metz HowardTim SeleyDan StoreyR. Cole ThompsonAndy White Janet PorietisPRINTING Kingston Printing, Eudora, Kansas

Cover: In April, KU Jazz Ensemble I, under the direction of Dan Gailey, was one of six college big bands selected to perform at the Monterey Jazz Festival's Next Generation Jazz Festival. Photo: R. Cole Thompson

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Welcome to the third edition of Serenade, the annual update from the University of Kansas School of Music. We sincerely hope you enjoy reading about our many successes from this past year, as well as some of the exciting plans to come. So many of you have commented on last year’s Serenade, with its reports on classmates’ accomplishments and nostalgic tales of alumni’s treasured time at KU. This edition continues to highlight our tradition as one the nation’s leading music schools, preparing graduates for meaningful careers and lifetimes of fulfillment through music.

We are particularly proud of KU Jazz Ensemble I, which won the equivalent of a national championship when it was selected through competitive audition as Downbeat magazine’s Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year (Graduate Division). Other student

ensembles continue to distinguish themselves through their performances at the Lied Center and in the Kansas City area. Our students make us proud in so many ways, not the least of which is by getting good jobs that contribute in significant ways to society. Nearly 100 percent of our undergraduate music education and music therapy students find high quality employment in the first year after graduation. KU doctoral music graduates are also finding success, including faculty positions in other university music schools across the country.

Faculty are passionate about working with our students, both in the academic training they provide and their mentorship outside of the classroom. Their own accomplishments in research and professional service help keep the reputation of our School of Music strong among elite comprehensive music schools. It is with a sense of melancholy that we say farewell to Debra Hedden, who is retiring after a successful career teaching music to children and training future generations of music teachers. We congratulate Dr. Hedden on her wonderful career and many exemplary contributions to KU.

We have faced a budget reduction approaching $500,000. To continue serving our students and empowering our faculty, we are more reliant than ever before on philanthropic support from generous patrons and passionate alumni. No gift is too small! Learn more at music.ku.edu/kumusicfriends.

Music changes people’s lives. Through our work together, MUSIC is making a difference for our university and in our world.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

Robert Walzel, DeanSchool of Music

A Message from the Dean

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Right: The KU School of Music kicked-off the academic year with the

19th Annual Collage Concert, showcasing the

school’s wide array of talent and disciplines and

ending with a rousing performance by the KU

Marching Jayhawks, performing game day

favorites throughout the Lied Center.

REVIEW

Right: On Armistice Day, the KU Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Carolyn Watson,

performed a concert at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, to

mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The concert, A Centenary of Conflict,

commemorated loss and offered renewed hoped.

The rain didn’t stop the Class of 2019 from shining during the KU School of Music Recognition Ceremony at Murphy Hall on May 18. Nearly 150 students

graduated from the School of Music, celebrating with the traditional walk through the Campanile, down the hill and into Memorial Stadium for

university-wide Commencement on May 19.

Photo: Christine M

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Photo: Christine M

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Photo: Tim

Seeley

A YEAR IN

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Top Right: In January virtuoso percussionist and composer Andy Akiho joined the KU Percussion Group, directed by Michael Compitello, in a concert presented by the Lied Center.

Bottom Right: Saxophonist and Dave Matthews Band member Jeff Coffin wowed students as the headliner of the 2019 Prairie Winds Festival. The former member of the Grammy-winning Bela Fleck and the Flecktones gave a master class and performed with the KU Wind Ensemble and KU Jazz Ensemble I in February. His visit was sponsored by Reach Out Kansas, Inc.

Left: A favorite KU holiday tradition, the KU School of Music rung in the season with the 94th Annual Vespers featuring KU Choirs, conducted by Paul Tucker and Mariana Farah (pictured left), and the KU Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Carolyn Watson, at the Lied Center of Kansas.

This spring, romantic blunders abounded and fairies interfered in the KU School of Music and KU Theatre joint production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, drawn from Shakespeare’s classic comedy. The production was directed by John Stephens, professor of voice, and featured the KU Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Carolyn Watson.

Photo: Christine M

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Photo: Christine M

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ndy White, K

U M

arketing and Com

munications

Photo: Luke Jordan

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1 - More than 50 members of the KU Symphonic Chorus, directed by Paul Tucker, traveled to California in June to perform with the University

of California, Irvine Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Tucker’s twin brother, Stephen Tucker. The

ensembles came together for a joint performance and recording of the

world premiere of Bernard Gilmore’s Journey to Freedom and Forrest

Pierce’s Mirror Cantata at the Soka Performing Arts Center in Aliso Viejo,

California. Tenor Genaro Méndez, associate professor of voice, was

among the featured vocalists.

2-3 - March Madness descended upon the KU Men’s Basketball Band as it traveled to Salt

Lake City for the NCAA tournament. The group discovered among the perks of advancing to the second round of the tournament was the

chance to the hit the slopes at Alta, one of Utah’s famous ski resorts.

4 - Current and former students had the opportunity to visit Lawrence’s city sister Eutin, Germany, in May. The group

performed in the annual Classical Beats Music Festival. Pictured left to right are Murphy Smith, Hilary Lowery, Alex Frank and

Lianna Bartlett.

6-7 - In February for the 9th Annual Scholarship Concert, four students from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music

in Milan, Italy, performed with the KU Symphony Orchestra. They were Simone Seriani, Elisa Bisetto, Davide Scalese Civati, and Martina Motta. Their visit was made possible through the

generous support of Reach Out Kansas, Inc. Several months later, Dean Robert Walzel and faculty members Daniel Velasco,

David Colwell and Boris Vayner (pictured right) traveled to Milan as part of the ongoing exchange program. The group performed in concert alongside the conservatory’s faculty.

5 - On June 1, the 12-member KU Tuba-Euphonium Consort, conducted by Scott Watson, had the opportunity to perform at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference at the University

of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.

Each year students and faculty at the KU School of Music have the opportunity to travel around the globe to share their gifts of music with the world. Below are a few of the highlights from the 2018-2019 academic year.

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JAYHAWKS ON THE MOVE

Photo: Pablo Cabrera

* Photos submitted unless otherwise noted.

With membership in a global music education organization and a new partnership with Shanghai Normal University, the KU School of Music continues to strengthen its relationships with Chinese music institutions.

In December, the school was invited to join the Global Music Education League, a non-governmental, non-profit academic organization that was established in 2017 to increase coordination among international music education institutions.

The organization, which was inspired by and headquartered at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, includes more than 30 world-class music institutions from 14 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. School of Music membership is alongside other top international music schools, such as Stanford University, Peabody Institute at John Hopkins University, Northwestern University, Eastman School of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, Cleveland Institute, China Conservatory of Music, Sydney Conservatory of Music and Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki.

“Membership in the Global Music Education League gives us a prominent

place among the leading international music schools working to promote the highest standards of excellence and achievement,” KU School of Music Dean Robert Walzel said.

During the past academic year, the School of Music also formalized an agreement with Shanghai Normal University, creating a program for fourth-year students at Shanghai Normal to come to KU to earn a master’s degree. Currently the program is centered on piano students, but has potential to expand to other performance areas.

“We see this as an opportunity to expand our footprint in a part of the world where the study of classical music is flourishing,” Walzel said. “This will be attractive to Chinese piano students and teachers and will lead to high-level students pursuing advanced graduate work at KU.

Beginning in the fall, faculty at Shanghai Normal University, with the assistance of KU faculty, will recruit and audition first-year students in China to participate in the program. Following successful completion of their third academic year, these students will qualify for enrollment in graduate-level courses at the KU School of Music. The students will then study one year at KU to complete their undergraduate degree from Shanghai Normal University and study a second year at KU to earn a Master of Music degree.

Over the past few years, the KU School of Music and Shanghai Normal University, a major public university in one of the largest cities in the world, have built a fruitful relationship. Scott McBride Smith, the Cordelia Brown Murphy Professor of Piano Pedagogy at KU, is a visiting professor at Shanghai Normal University.

“Shanghai Normal University is a highly-ranked teacher training institution in China, as well as having one of the top-ranked schools of music. Working together will help us take another big step in building an innovative and internationally recognized pedagogy program,” McBride Smith said.

McBride Smith is a recognized leader in worldwide music education and is currently president of the Music Teachers National Association of the United States, an organization that is also working to establish connections with music programs throughout China. In recent years, four KU School of Music doctoral graduates have received faculty positions at prestigious Chinese universities and conservatories. Those schools include Hainan University, Guangzhou University, Chengdu University and the Wuhan Conservatory.

■ Christine Metz Howard

RELATIONSHIPS WITH CHINESE MUSIC INSTITUTIONS CONTINUE TO GROW

Scott McBride Smith

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Jazz had a rough start at the University of Kansas. In a 1913 article in the University Daily Kansan, Director of Bands J.C. McCanles claimed that “ragtime is waning” and thought the public no longer wanted to hear that “jingle-jangle music.” Seven years later, another article in the Kansan noted that Harold L. Butler, dean of the School of Fine Arts, blamed jazz for the “undesirable dances prevalent of late,” and that jazz “has no real musical qualities and it appeals only to the lowest feelings.” He too predicted a quick end to the music genre, all according to the book Music & Dance at KU: A History of Two Performing Arts at the University of Kansas.

Yet, jazz persisted. So much so that in the 1950s and 1960s, Dean Thomas Gorton refused to allow jazz to be played in the practice rooms of Strong Hall, where the music department was housed, and then later in the newly built Murphy Hall. But that did not stop the musicians from practicing underground in the basement of Bailey Hall or from forming jazz bands to perform at fraternity dances and local clubs.

Flash forward 50 years and the KU School of Music has developed a top jazz studies program, a fact illustrated in April when DownBeat named the KU Jazz Ensemble I,

under the direction of Dan Gailey, as the best graduate college large jazz ensemble in the country.

It was the 27th DownBeat award KU has won since Gailey took over the jazz studies program in 1990. Along with an impressive number of DownBeat awards, the program has produced great educators and performers, sent students around the world, and brought in legendary jazz musicians, all while championing new music.

“I think it is one of the top jazz programs in the nation,” said Robert Foster, the longtime director of bands who launched the jazz program shortly after he came to KU in 1971. “We started from no jazz program to a baby jazz program, to a pretty good program, to a real good program, to a great jazz program.”

‘AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT’Prior to Foster’s arrival, several faculty

members resented that jazz had not yet been incorporated into the music department. During his job interview, with Gorton present, Foster was asked for his thoughts on the lack of a jazz program.

Foster, who had overseen the jazz program at the University of Florida as well as taught jazz at the middle school and high

JAZZ AT KU: From underground to around the world

school levels, said without jazz KU’s program would be unbalanced.

“It was something that I believed was an important component of a really good band education,” Foster said. “Particularly, if you are working with young musicians. If they are going to function in the real world today, they have to be able to play everything. The people who are great at everything, including jazz, get the top jobs.”

When Foster started his role as the director of bands, KU had one orchestra, two concert bands, an open-admission band and the marching band. By the spring of 1972, the first jazz band began rehearsing. The band was easily filled by students who had been playing jazz behind the scenes and undercover for years. The musicians met in Bailey Hall, carrying instruments up the hill from Murphy Hall.

The following year, Foster started a second band, which was directed by then grad student James Barnes, who would go on to become the KU assistant director of bands, and a third band, which was conducted by David Bushouse, professor of horn.

As the level of musicianship grew, the band began performing at the Kansas Union and around campus. But it wasn’t until the mid 1970s that Jazz Ensemble I, under Foster’s

KU Jazz Ensemble I, under the direction of Robert Foster, gave its first concert in Swarthout Recital Hall sometime in the mid 1970s. The concert featured guest artist Gary Foster, a top Los Angeles studio musician who was among those forbidden to play jazz in Murphy Hall when he attended KU a little more than a decade before.

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direction, gave its first concert in Swarthout Recital Hall. The concert featured guest artist Gary Foster, a top Los Angeles studio musician, who was among those forbidden to play jazz in Murphy Hall when he attended KU a little more than a decade before.

“People thought it was just wonderful,” Robert Foster said of the concert, and shortly afterward the jazz ensemble began playing in jazz festivals and even had a glowing review in the Kansas City Star when it performed in the KU Medical Center auditorium.

‘A MAGICAL TIME’In 1976, Foster handed over the top

jazz ensemble to Barnes. The same year, he brought on a young graduate assistant and recent Florida A&M alumnus Ron McCurdy.

McCurdy heard jazz and many other genres while growing up in a music-loving home, but spent his time at Florida A&M writing drills for marching band and arranging band music.

Looking for a way to be useful as a new graduate student, McCurdy joined Jazz Ensemble I.

“We were wonderful musicians, but we didn’t have a strong concept of jazz, including myself,” McCurdy said.

From there, McCurdy began studying

jazz and soon took over Jazz Ensemble II. Just as he was starting to grow comfortable with the brass, wind and saxophone sections, McCurdy encountered jazz education guru Jamey Aebersold, who was a guest artist at the Winfield (Kansas) Jazz Festival. McCurdy, with a fair amount of confidence, asked Aebersold how he sounded. Aebersold told him to come to his jazz camp to learn how to play.

“And he was right,” McCurdy said. “I went the next ten years in a row and became a sponge. I learned how to play and teach, and brought it back to KU.”

From there, McCurdy said, Foster gave him the “keys to the Ferrari,” as he took over the program, which grew to two jazz bands, two combos, a vocal jazz group and classes. By the time McCurdy finished his PhD in 1983, the jazz program had come into its own—winning festivals, traveling on European tours, performing at the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) national conference, and bringing in top artists for the relatively new KU Jazz Festival.

“I would find these guest artists on the

brink of doing great things: Take Six before they were famous and Bobby McFerrin before Don’t Worry Be Happy,” McCurdy said. “It was a magical time.”

In 1990, McCurdy left KU to become the director of jazz studies at the University of Minnesota, but not before providing one more lasting contribution to the program. He encouraged Gailey, who was finishing his master’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado, to apply for the position.

‘NEVER BEEN BETTER’Arriving in Lawrence on a 100-degree day,

having only traveled east of Colorado once before, and with two other job offers already on the table, Gailey was unsure of committing to KU when he came for his interview.

“Then I started meeting people, I saw the campus and I saw what was possible. Within an hour, I knew this was the gig I wanted,” Gailey said.

continue page 9

Ron McCurdy, left, came to KU in 1976 as a young graduate assistant. By the time he left in 1990, McCurdy had turned a budding jazz program into a strong and vibrant one that had performed in Europe, national conferences and jazz festivals.

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Gailey inherited a strong and vibrant program from McCurdy, but one with room for growth. No scholarship money existed for jazz students and Gailey had to “beg, borrow and steal” students for his rhythm section. Gailey worked to divert more resources to jazz and by 1992, the program received its first two DownBeat awards under his leadership. Along with the recognition in 1992, the jazz ensemble earned outstanding performance awards in ‘94 and ‘97.

“Boom, we were off and running,” Gailey said.A highlight in Gailey’s early years came in 1993, when Gailey

invited the up-and-coming jazz composer and jazz orchestra leader Maria Schneider to perform in Jazz Ensemble I’s first concert at the Lied Center. Schneider had been the assistant and copyist to the great jazz orchestrator Gil Evans and agreed to bring his music, which was difficult to acquire at that time.

Conducted by Schneider, the band performed a three-and-half-hour concert. The first half was nine works by Evans and the second half Schneider’s entire, yet-to-be-released first album.

“That is a Herculean undertaking for any college band,” Gailey said. “Maria went away from the performance on cloud nine and

told everyone about this band in Kansas. The word got out that this was a serious program doing things that most other Midwestern college programs weren’t doing.”

The program saw another turning point during the 2000s, when Gailey was able to bring-on teaching adjuncts to assist with the increasing load of conducting the top two big bands, vocal group and three combos, while still teaching academic classes. The added adjunct faculty shared Gailey’s vision on the importance of new music. Among the most visible jazz musicians in Kansas City, the faculty also infused the program with the city’s historic and vibrant jazz scene.

Today, along with Gailey, the jazz studies faculty include Matt Otto, assistant director and saxophone/improvisation; Brandon Draper, drums; Jeff Harshbarger, bass; and T.J. Martley, piano.

As the program grew, so did the reach of its performances. During the ‘90s, jazz ensembles performed at IAJE conferences in Miami, Boston, Atlanta and New York. Through the support of Reach Out Kansas, Inc, a non-profit organization established by Jim Zakoura to support the arts, the jazz studies program went global.

In 2008, 2014 and 2018, Jazz Ensemble I went on European tours, appearing at the world-famous Montreux International Jazz Festival among other venues. In 2016, the group performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center with famed jazz vocalist Deborah Brown. In 2018, it traveled with the KU Wind Ensemble to Washington, D.C. for the joint performance of the world premiere of Kevin Walczyk’s Freedom From Fear at the Kennedy Center. The concert also featured Palos Nuevos: The Jazz/Flamenco Project, which was composed by Gailey and choregraphed by Michelle Heffner Hayes, professor of dance.

“The support of Reach Out Kansas has been immense and helped us take the program to the next level these past few years. Those are life-changing experiences for our students,” Gailey said.

Jazz Ensemble I also was one of six college big bands to be selected in 2017 and 2019 to perform at Monterey Jazz Festival’s Next Generation Festival in California.

As high school jazz programs grow stronger, so do the students arriving to KU’s jazz studies program, Gailey said, disproving the century-old prediction from KU faculty that jazz was on the way out.

“The program has never been better than it is now,” said Foster, the man who started it 47 years ago.

■ Christine Metz Howard

In 2018, KU Jazz Ensemble I traveled with the KU Wind Ensemble to Washington, D.C. for the joint performance of the world premiere of Kevin Walczyk’s Freedom From Fear at the Kennedy Center. The concert also featured Palos Nuevos: The Jazz/Flamenco Project, which was composed by Gailey and choregraphed by Michelle Heffner Hayes, professor of dance.

Thanks to the support of Reach Out Kansas, Inc., the KU Jazz Studies Program has been able to travel to Europe and perform in world-class venues. In 2016, the group gave a concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center with famed jazz vocalist Deborah Brown.

Photo: Andy White/KU Marketing and Communications

Photo: Dan Storey/KUAA

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• Reginal Buckner, BME ’61 and MME ’66, was a professor of music and jazz education at the University of Minnesota.• Bill Booth, BME ’66, joined the renowned USAF Airman of Note after graduation and before becoming one of the top

trombonists in Las Vegas. He is the principle trombonist with the Los Angeles Opera, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and Pasadena Symphony, as well as a top LA studio musician, having performed with legendary composer John Williams and on more than 1,200 motion pictures. He is a faculty member at University of California, Santa Barbara.

• Tina Claussen, DMA ‘03, is an associate professor of music in saxophone and jazz studies at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.

• Nathan Davis, BME ’60, was a saxophonist who performed with Kenny Drake, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Byrd and Eric Dolphy. He founded and directed the jazz studies program at the University of Pittsburgh.

• Gary Foster, BM ’59 in clarinet and BME ‘ 61, has worked with the Grammy-nominated Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin big band. As a Los Angeles studio musician, he has played alto sax with such musicians as Frank Zappa, Louis Bellson, and Bob Dylan.

• Paul Haar, BM ’94 and MM ’96, is a professor of saxophone and director of jazz studies at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

• Marqueal Jordan, BS in business ‘94, is a professional saxophonist in Chicago. He tours and records with smooth jazz star Brian Culbertson.

• Carmell Jones, BME ’62, was a trumpeter who worked with Nathan Davis, Cleanhead Vinson and Frank Smith, as well as a studio musician in California. He lived in Germany for 15 years, working with Paul Kuhn and the SFB Big Band and performed extensively in Kansas City.

• Nate Jorgensen, DMA ’10, is a professor of saxophone and the director of jazz studies at the University of New Hampshire.

• David von Kampen, DMA, ’14, is a lecturer of music theory and literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he directs the UNL Vocal Jazz Ensemble. While a student at KU, von Kampen won six DownBeat awards.

• Andrew Linn, BM in trumpet ’10, is a successful composer, performer and producer in the New York City area. His notable clients have included New Balance Team, Glamsquad, Postmaster Art Gallery and Thankful.org.

• Kerry Marsh, BME ’00, is the former director of vocal jazz at the University of Northern Colorado and has worked with Ben Folds as a vocal arranger and background singers director in numerous performances with major symphony orchestras.

• Daniel O’Brien, who was a student at KU, is a trumpeter who has toured with the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

• Nick Weiser, BM in piano ‘08, is the director of jazz studies at SUNY Fredonia.

NOTABLE JAZZ ALUMNI:

1991 and 2006 - Peter Erskine

1994 - Dave Brubeck Quartet

1995 - Dianne Reeves Quintet

1996 - Toshiko Akiyoshi 1998 - Maria Schneider (again in 2002) and Ingrid Jensen (again in 2005)

1998 - Michael Brecker Quartet

1999 and 2014 - Dave Douglas

2011 - Christian McBride

2010 - Kenny Garrett Quartet

2013 - Kurt Rosenwinkel

KU JAZZ FESTIVALGuest Artists Highlights

Over the past 42 years, the KU Jazz Festival has brought in world-class musicians. Among the highlights was 1996, when the festival featured legendary jazz composer and pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi, pictured left, and jazz vocalists Kevin Mahogany, pictured right with Dan Gailey, and Lisa Henry, as well as the Grammy-winning Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

Photos: Wally E

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competition. Each semi-finalist was required to submit a 25-minute final program recording. Boehmer was then one of three finalists chosen to come to Miami and compete in the final round, which was an evening recital on Feb. 22 performed in front of an audience of more than 300 people at the Church of the Epiphany. The contestants also performed in front of a panel of judges who sat behind a screen so they couldn’t see the finalists. Boehmer’s program included the first movement of Max Reger’s Second Organ Sonata, a piece based on a Gregorian chant, Jean Langlais’ Ave Maria, Ave Maris Stella, the third movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s church cantata Allein Gott in der Höh sei’ Ehr (Keep Jesus Christ in mind) and Vers l’espérance from Poémes by Thierry Escaich.

“I was in shock,” Boehmer said of winning first prize. “I come from a very small town in Alberta, Canada. I’ve grown up watching these other up-and-coming organists, and now to stand among them is just surreal.”

Before his performance in Miami, Boehmer had seen other successes internationally. In August he was a quarter-finalist in the Grand Prix de Chartes International Competition in France. At the end of September, he was one of three finalists to compete in the Sydney International Organ Competition in the Great Hall at the University of Sydney in Australia. Boehmer placed second overall and was awarded the special prize for outstanding performance of a work by an Australian composer.

In November Boehmer had the opportunity to travel on a five-city concert tour that was part of a special prize he won at the Tariverdiev International Organ

Competition in 2017. The Russian tour took him from Moscow to Kransodar, three hours

south of Moscow by car, then across four time zones to Siberia to the cities of Tomsk and

Krasnoyarsk. From there, Boehmer took a 33-hour train ride west to Chelyabinsk.

“Each competition was an opportunity to get outside my comfort zone and experience a new

culture,” Boehmer said. Originally from Cardston, a small town in

southwest Alberta, Canada, Boehmer earned his master’s degree in organ and church music from KU

and received his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University. Along with his studies at KU,

Boehmer is the organist at the First United Methodist Church of Leavenworth.

Boehmer’s experiences abroad continued in the spring semester with a study abroad program in Bremen,

Germany, the heart of a historical center for European organ music. Over the summer Boehmer traveled to

England for the St. Albans International Organ Festival. “Tyler is a wonderful ambassador all over the world for

The University of Kansas,” Higdon said.■ Christine Metz Howard

Tyler Boehmer’s success at international organ competitions took him around the world during the 2018-2019 school year as he competed in France, Australia, Russia and the United States. In February Boehmer, a doctoral student in organ and church

music performance, won first place at the Miami International Organ Competition. Earlier in the school year, he earned second place at the Sydney International Organ Competition in Australia and advanced to the quarter finals in the Grand Prix de Chartes International Competition in France. He also went on a five-city concert tour in Russia as part of a special prize he won at the Tariverdiev International Organ Competition in 2017.

“Tyler is extremely musical and his playing communicates with audiences in an exceptional way,” said James Higdon, the Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ with whom Boehmer studies. “His consistent inclusion in the world’s most prestigious international competitions and his many prizes certainly confirm that he is one of the leading talents in our field today. He will most definitely continue to enjoy an enviable career.”

Boehmer was one of three finalists to compete in the Miami International Organ Competition, which is sponsored by Fratelli Ruffatti, renowned organ builders from Padua, Italy, and Church of the Epiphany in Miami. The competition aims to encourage and recognize talented young organists from around the world.

Out of more than 30 submitted recordings, Boehmer was one of eight organists selected to advance to the semi-final round of the

KU STUDENT EARNS TOP

AWARDS IN INTERNATIONAL

ORGAN COMPETITIONS

Students in the Spotlight

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Students in the Spotlight

Senior Alice Kirsch hopes to do what many have told her couldn’t be done: complete two restrictive degree tracts in music education and pre-med in four years. It’s

a goal that has meant taking classes over winter and summer breaks, carrying huge credit loads

during the fall and spring semesters, and going with little sleep.

If successful, Kirsch, who is from Marion, Iowa, would be the first KU School of Music student to

complete both degrees simultaneously.“To be able to do that in four years and to be the

first one to do it when people said it couldn’t be done, that is an amazing accomplishment,” said Paul Stevens,

professor of horn, with whom Kirsch studies.Along with completing the coursework, Kirsch, who plays the French horn, performs in numerous ensembles at KU, including the

symphony orchestra, wind ensemble, horn ensemble and an award-winning horn quartet. She also spends her weekends working overnight as a CNA taking care of dementia patients at a skilled nursing and assisted living facility.

“She always comes through in those clutch situations and she likes to be challenged. I think that sums her up in one sentence,” Stevens said.

This February Kirsch was recognized as the 2019 Presser Scholar, one of the most prestigious undergraduate awards. Each year, KU School of Music faculty choose a worthy junior who displays excellence in the field.

“She is a great student, a great musician and a great person who has contributed to the School of Music in so many ways,” Stevens saidAt an early age, Kirsch decided to become a doctor when she learned about Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian

medical organization. After connecting with meaningful mentors in high school, she also wanted to continue her studies in music.“I didn’t know that I wanted music to be a permanent part of my life until I got to high school. I just grew a lot as a person through the

people I met and the experiences I had. I realized this was something that I never wanted to let go,” Kirsch said.Kirsch is pursuing a music education degree to learn about both the pedagogical and performance aspects. One of the highlights of her

time at KU has been participating as a music mentor through the KU Center for Community Outreach, which provides the opportunity for KU student musicians to give free lessons to high school and middle school students who are unable to afford them. Along with instructing students on the trumpet, Kirsch works as the program coordinator, connecting with parents and band directors in the community in order to match students.

“When I was that age, I wasn’t able to afford music lessons and would have done anything to have an opportunity to be in that situation. So, I am just so happy to give back now that I have the opportunity to do so,” Kirsch said.

During her three years at KU, Kirsch also had a successful performance career. In 2018, she had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. with the KU Wind Ensemble for the world premiere of Kevin Walczyk’s “Freedom from Fear” at the Kennedy Center. In the fall she performed in a concert commemorating the 100th Anniversary of World War I with the KU Symphony Orchestra at the Kauffman Center in Kansas City, Missouri. She’s also a member of a horn quartet that has placed well in national competitions. Even while juggling her many commitments, Stevens said Kirsch never shrinks away from difficult French horn lessons.

“A lot of people with her stress level would try to back off their private lessons and she doesn’t do that. She looks for pieces that will push her. And she does a fantastic job every time,” Stevens said.

Someday, Kirsch hopes all her hard work will mean she’s an anesthesiologist who has her own French horn studio and performs in her free time.

“I’m still working out how to combine the two,” she said of her passion for music and medicine.

■ Christine Metz Howard

PRESSER SCHOLAR PURSUES PASSION FOR MUSIC AND MEDICINE

Photo: Christine M

etz How

ard

12

AN AMBASSADOR FOR MUSIC:

AFGHAN TRUMPETER SHARES HIS

INCREDIBLE JOURNEY TO KU

Photo: Andy White/KU Marketing and Communications

In 2016, Steve Leisring, professor of trumpet, was recruiting Ahmad Basset Azizi, then a senior at Michigan’s Interlochen Arts Academy, to KU. During one early conversation, Leisring shared the recent accomplishments of KU alumnus and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end a 50-year civil war in his country.

Azizi replied that perhaps he would be KU’s next Nobel Peace Prize winner.

“Right then I knew he was a pretty special young man,” Leisring said. “I just thought that was pretty astounding.”

Azizi and his journey to KU is nothing short of astounding. Azizi grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was the oldest

and only son in a family of four children. From a young age, Azizi was always singing, so much so that his neighbors would good naturedly tease him. When he reached middle school age, he was accepted into the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, a school that instructs in Afghan and Western music.

In seventh grade Azizi’s attention turned from singing to instruments, when he was introduced to the trumpet. It was an introduction that marked the first time he saw the instrument. At first, he wanted to pick an instrument he had seen before, something “fun,” such as the piano, guitar or drums. But after two weeks, he learned a few notes on the trumpet and was hooked.

“I thought ‘this is an interesting beautiful sound, I think I can do this,’” Azizi said. “I started playing and people encouraged me.”

Azizi was a quick study, earning first chair in his school’s ensembles and performing at functions attended by ambassadors and presidents. But being a musician in Afghanistan can be dangerous and draw unwanted attention from the Taliban, whose laws forbid playing music and musical instruments.

Unfortunately, Azizi’s first teacher left, as did the one who came after him. Meanwhile, Azizi wanted to expand his musical horizons.

“I was good in Afghanistan, but I wanted to be a professional musician where I could play everywhere,” Azizi said.

While online listening to trumpet recordings, he came across David Bilger, principal trumpet for The Philadelphia Orchestra

“I listened to a clip and thought this is a beautiful sound. And, I watched a few more videos and thought this is awesome, I knew he was a good trumpet player,” Azizi said.

Azizi wrote Bilger a Facebook message, introducing himself as the best trumpet player in Afghanistan (also noting that he was only one of two trumpet players in the country) and asked for lessons. It caught Bilger’s attention and he responded 12 hours later. From there, the two began conducting lessons over Skype. To adjust for the time difference, the lessons were held at 11 p.m. in Philadelphia and 6 a.m. in Kabul.

A year into the lessons, Azizi began thinking of opportunities to play music outside of Afghanistan. Bilger focused on coaching Azizi for auditioning at Interlochen and used his connections to pull together resources to help him. Although Azizi earned a scholarship to Interlochen, more assistance was needed. A growing group of worldwide supporters backed a fundraising campaign on the website GoFundMe for Azizi’s travel and living costs and assisted with acquiring the necessary paperwork for him to come to the United States on a student visa.

Leisring, who is acquainted with Bilger and was familiar with Azizi’s story, reached out to Azizi shortly after his arrival at Interlochen. Azizi expressed interest in KU, even though he knew little about Leisring or Kansas.

Thanks to the support of Reach Out Kansas, Inc., Azizi had the opportunity to visit KU during the Prairie Winds Festival. The visit also provided an opportunity to audition.

“I was here for a few days, and I wasn’t really sure about KU. Then, the last day I was here, I had a good lesson with Mr. Leisring and that changed my mind,” Azizi said.

After his visit, people across the university made a commitment to offer Azizi a scholarship, allowing him the opportunity to attend KU.

Entering into his junior year, Azizi has made great progress since coming to KU, Leisring said.

“To do any instrument seriously it takes so much more than talent. It is hard work and dedication as well. And he has found all three,” Leisring said.

Among the highlights was a nomination by the principal trumpeter of the Berlin Philharmonic to audition for a position at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Germany, which is led by the great conductor Daniel Barenboim. Azizi was one of four trumpeters selected to audition. Unfortunately, because of visa restrictions, he couldn’t travel to Berlin for the live audition.

Travel restrictions continue to be a struggle for Azizi. For three years, he hasn’t seen his family in Afghanistan, where suicide bombings, attacks on civilians, kidnapping and killings by the Taliban and terrorists are a part of everyday life. He also is concerned about the lack of opportunities for the women in his family.

“He takes everything in stride, but I know there are times that he comes in and he has seen the news that there has been a bombing in his home city and he is constantly worried about his family. He deals with that every day. He stays up late at night communicating with his folks. So, there are a lot of things in the background that don’t happen to other students that he is dealing with,” Leisring said.

A GoFundMe campaign was established in 2019 to help Azizi’s family travel outside of Afghanistan and is nearing completion.

“When you don’t see your parents for three years, it is difficult,” Azizi said. “And I think it is more difficult for them. I was their only son and I just left. For me I have a lot of things to do. I study, go to classes, practice, and much more, but for them nothing has changed in life. So, it is very difficult for them. But we will hopefully try to work something out and see each other sometime soon.”

Throughout Azizi’s journey, support and interest have poured in from around the world. Azizi has been featured on the CBS Evening News, Voice of America and among GoFundMe’s highlighted causes.

Leisring said Azizi has friends and supporters from all around the world. He pointed to a group of Afghans, with whom Azizi had connected but never spoken to, who came to see him in Washington, D.C. when the KU Wind Ensemble performed at the Kennedy Center in 2018.

“He communicates with people. He seems like such a thoughtful young man and that is exactly what he is,” Leisring said. “He would be a fantastic ambassador.”

■ Christine Metz Howard

“I was good in

Afghanistan, but I wanted

to be a professional

musician where I could

play everywhere,”

- Ahmad Basset Azizi

14

KU faculty member to be recognized.In a letter of recommendation to

KMEA, School of Music Dean Robert Walzel noted Hedden’s extraordinary work to prepare students to become music teachers, including placing student teachers in classrooms for preservice training.

“The difference she has made in the lives and education of the hundreds of students she has taught is truly remarkable,” Walzel wrote. “She has in so many ways contributed to the profession of teaching music in the public schools of our state.”

When Hedden arrived at KU, there wasn’t a faculty member who focused on teaching general music, therefore students embarking on teaching careers weren’t all that interested in doing so.

“One of the things I was able to bring to the program was a love for general music teaching and the importance of teaching every child in the elementary school to participate in music so that they take away musical skills for life-long learning. It’s been great fun to see how many general music teachers KU has produced over the years. That puts a huge smile on my face.”

In her nomination letter for Hedden’s induction into the Hall of Fame, Jennifer Potter, who was Hedden's student as an undergraduate and graduate, wrote that many students have taken positions as elementary general music teachers because of Hedden’s coursework.

“Her students leave the music education program at the University of Kansas as the most well-prepared, confident and compassionate preservice teachers in Kansas,” Potter wrote. “Dr. Hedden’s zeal for teaching future music educators, combined with her never-ending warmth and support for her students, is unmatched.”

Along with bringing a passion for general music to the program, Hedden founded the KU Youth Chorus, won two Fulbright awards to study music teaching methods in Lithuania, and received the Byron T. Shutz Award for Excellence in Teaching, annually given to one KU faculty member.

As part of the Fulbright awards, Hedden has traveled to Lithuania five times to teach and conduct research.

She shared information about her classroom management methods and ways of teaching music, as well as how to use materials in classroom lessons. In return, she learned new aspects of pedagogy, especially from watching several choral teachers in the singing schools and a university professor, who was an improvisation teacher.

“I watched him take music majors in the beginning of the year who were very nervous about doing anything with improvisation; and he would start with very simple rhythmic tasks where they would clap or tap different rhythms. By the end of the year, they were creating rock operas on the spot with their instruments and voices. It was amazing,” Hedden said.

Her fourth research article on her findings from Lithuania was published this summer.

Hedden ended her time at KU with one more accolade. During the KU School of Music Recognition Ceremony, she was recognized with the school’s Outstanding Teacher Award.

Heading into retirement, Hedden said she’ll miss the classroom and students the most.

“The biggest highlight has been getting to work with the students,” Hedden said. “It is what I do best in life. To see them bloom and grow is the best part of the job.”

■ Christine Metz Howard

On Debra Hedden’s first day of teaching general music, she had three one-hour first-grade classes. In the first, a child got a bloody nose; in the second a student fell and hit his head; and in the third a first-grader got up, walked out of the classroom, and told her he was

quitting class. “I was walking right behind him,

thinking ‘I’m quitting too. I can’t do this job,’” Hedden said.

Luckily for the thousands of students who followed that challenging first day, Hedden didn’t. Instead, she developed techniques for better managing classrooms. She has passed on that knowledge in legendary university courses she has taught as professor and director of music education at KU.

“I want our music education students to go out and be successful in the classroom, and the first caveat for that is to have good classroom management before you can teach them anything. The music comes second,” Hedden said.

After 46 years of teaching – 20 years as a general music teacher in Iowa public schools, followed by chairing music education at the University of Northern Iowa and then teaching at KU since 2003 - Hedden retired at the end of the academic year.

In an already distinguished career, Hedden earned one more accolade in the spring semester as she was inducted into the Kansas Music Educators Association’s Hall of Fame in February during the annual KMEA In-Service Workshop in Wichita.

The Hall of Fame is KMEA’s highest honor and is given to members of the music education community in Kansas who have made a significant contribution to the growth of music in the state. The KMEA Hall of Fame began in 1975, and Hedden is the 11th

PROFESSOR RECOGNIZED FOR LASTING INFLUENCE

15

The world’s premier organist Olivier Latry has been named a William T. Kemper Artist-in-Residence at the University of Kansas School of Music, beginning this fall.

Latry is one of three organists at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and is professor of organ at the Paris Conservatory of Music. He performs more than 100 concerts a year and has given concerts in more than 50 countries on five continents.

This is the first time Latry has held an academic position outside of France. As part of the appointment, Latry will visit the KU School of Music each semester for three years, giving lessons, master classes and concerts as part of his stay. Latry’s appointment is made possible through the William T. Kemper Foundation—Commerce Bank, Trustee.

“The impact of Olivier Latry joining the faculty of the School of Music as the William T. Kemper Artist-in-Residence cannot be overstated, as he will have an unparalleled connection with our students,” said James Higdon, KU Dane and Polly Bales Professor of Organ. “The Greater Kansas City community

has an enviable culture in the arts that extends to the organ and its literature, and his presence will enrich the entire region.”

Latry’s plans to visit in November. During that time, he will perform a benefit concert at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, Missouri, with proceeds going to Notre Dame employees who have lost their jobs because of April's devastating fire at the cathedral.

Latry’s appointment is the result of a decades-long relationship that began when he visited the KU School of Music in 1986 as the first stop on his inaugural American tour. Since his first visit, Latry has performed at KU six more times. During his last visit in October 2017, Latry was joined by Notre Dame’s two other titular organists Phillippe Lefebvre and Vincent Dubois as part of the 2017 American Guild of Organists National Pedagogy Conference, which was hosted by the KU School of Music’s Division of Organ and Church Music.

“I welcomed Olivier Latry to KU in 1986. In that first visit, we established a strong personal bond and long-lasting

relationship with KU and our organ program,” Higdon said.

In 1985 at the age of 23, Latry won the competition to become one of the three titular organists of Notre Dame, making him the youngest Notre Dame organist in the modern era. In 1995 he was appointed professor of organ at the Paris Conservatory, where he continues to teach alongside Michael Bouvard. He is also organist emeritus with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in Canada.

Along with performing every three weeks at Notre Dame, Latry maintains a full schedule of concert performances, appearing regularly as a soloist at prestigious venues and festivals, and with leading orchestras around the world. Latry has recorded through the BNL, Deutsche Grammophon and Naïve labels. His most recent recordings include Bach to the Future, performed on the Cavaille-Coll instrument at Notre Dame and Trois Siècles d’Orgue Notre Dame de Paris, featuring music composed by past and current organists of Notre Dame.

■ Christine Metz Howard

NOTRE DAME ORGANIST OLIVIER LATRY NAMED WILLIAM T. KEMPER ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE AT KU

16

17

There’s a juicy psychological, even romantic, angle underlying Scott Murphy’s mathematical analysis of an important Johannes Brahms composition in the new book co-written and edited by the professor of music theory.

Murphy’s chapter in Brahms and the Shaping of Time

(2018, University of Rochester Press) is titled “Durational Enharmonicism and the Opening of Brahms’ Double Concerto.” The book is part of the publisher’s Eastman Studies in Music series, named for the New York university’s renowned music school. In addition to his editing tasks, Murphy contributed the book’s introduction and one of its nine chapters.

In his chapter, Murphy analyzes the rhythmic patterns in Brahms’ so-called “Double” Concerto in A Minor for Violin and Cello, op. 102, finding meaning in them that reflects the personal struggles of the composer, his friend Joseph Joachim and Joachim’s estranged wife.

“Brahms had a friend, Joseph Joachim, who was one of the leading violinists of the 19th-century and also something of a composer,” Murphy said. “The two would trade compositions back and forth. They had a friendship for decades until they got into a domestic situation.

“Joachim’s wife, Amalie, was filing for divorce, frustrated with the fact that her husband thought her to be unfaithful, whereas she claimed that she had not been. Joachim was prone to these flights of fancy, given even just a little bit of context, to think that, for example, ‘Oh, this publisher is having an affair with my wife.’ So in the divorce proceeding, Amalie turned to Brahms to support her, because Brahms had known Joachim for years and knew this

side of Joachim. Brahms wrote a letter to Amalie, supporting her side of things, stating his familiarity with Joachim’s personality and his propensity for suspicion.

“This letter was intended to be private. However, it came out, not only in the court proceedings but also in public. When Joachim learned of this, he was enraged, and he and Brahms had a falling out.”

Seven years later, in the latter stages of the Romantic period, Murphy said, Brahms wrote the double concerto “as something of an olive branch that he extended to his friend.”

Brahms wrote the work for Joachim and the cellist Robert Hausmann. And while Brahms himself played piano, Murphy said that in this analysis, the composer can be thought of as the cello part.

“It starts off with the orchestra,” Murphy said, “and then the cello soloist comes in and plays particularly three notes very low in the range, and the relation between what the orchestra and the cello plays is quite interesting rhythmically.

“We have a situation where the cellist is coming in, and we can understand its varied durations in one of two different ways. In the book chapter, I connect that then to the biographical idea behind the concerto, which is that we have this situation that can be understood in one of two very different ways. Depending on one’s context, one has a certain perception or understanding of a certain phenomenon.

“I think it’s quite fitting that the violinist is not privy to the notation. The violinist is still standing there, waiting to come in. It’s the cellist that is given these notes. It is given the notational truth, as it were; however, the violinist

doesn’t have that information, and the violinist never plays these triplets anywhere in the concerto. It’s only the cello part that has them.

“So the cellist is given the notational truth, like Brahms is given the truth of the situation about his friend; whereas Joachim, unfortunately, has less of a clear mind about this and is more easily swayed by certain changes in context.”

Murphy argues that just as a single musical note can be understood as a D sharp or an E flat, depending on its context, so can the duration of a note Brahms employs be understood in two different ways, depending on its context.

“So that’s how I apply the idea of enharmonicism in pitch to the idea of enharmonicism with duration,” he said.

■ Rick Hellman

ROMANTIC-ERA MUSIC LINKED TO

REAL-LIFE ROMANTIC ENTANGLEMENT

BLUES SCHOLAR DEBUNKS NOTION HOKUM WAS INAUTHENTIC

18

FACULTY R

ESEARCH

Roberta Freund Schwartz is pushing back against the long-held scholarly view that the early, bawdy Chicago blues style known as hokum was a corruption of “authentic” Southern blues.

Rather, Schwartz, an associate professor of music, wrote in an article in the fall 2018 edition of the Journal of the Society for American Music that, while more sophisticated and commercial than country blues, hokum hits like It’s Tight Like That are themselves an authentic expression of a genre she calls "city style."

In so doing, Freund Schwartz, author of How Britain Got the Blues: The Transmission and Reception of American Blues Styles to the British Isles (Ashgate, 2007), is taking on no less a blues scholar than the late, renowned folklorist and record producer Alan Lomax.

In her article “How Blue Can You Get? It’s Tight Like That and the Hokum Blues,” Freund Schwartz quotes Lomax as asserting that recording executives of the era “encouraged their singers to produce cheap ‘novelty’ blues, the sillier the better,” which overshadowed “the poignant and often profound poesy of the earlier country blues….”

Lomax and others who held this view, she writes, “suggest that these songs, with their evocations of vaudeville and the medicine show, sexual innuendo and rambunctious character, betrayed the meaning and realism of ‘true’ blues, and thus couldn’t have been the conscious choice of the performers.”

Freund Schwartz has found, however, that this genre arose from the African-American artists themselves, was shepherded by a middle-management layer of African-American industry figures (studio musicians, A&R men, etc.), and was widely accepted by the black community in Chicago and around the country.

“I am pushing back on this commercialization argument,” Freund

Schwartz said. “Seventy-five cents, which is what a record cost, was not a negligible amount in the 1920s. It’s not something to throw away frivolously. You are not going to spend it on something you don’t want. This notion that record companies dictated things to artists; it’s completely the other way around. They are actually pushing the direction. Who gets recorded; who are the big stars? Those are the people whose records sell. It’s a democracy.”

In the article, Freund Schwartz traces Georgia Tom and Tampa Red’s 1928 Vocalion recording of It’s Tight Like That back to an older song (Papa Charlie Jackson’s 1925 Shake That Thing) and outlines its popularity upon its release, including the nearly two dozen cover versions and imitations that it quickly spawned.

Moreover, she situates the hokum craze within a larger musical phenomenon she calls the city style. It’s an outgrowth of the Great Migration of the early 20th century, in which over 1 million blacks fled Southern segregation and discrimination for the North.

In the article’s final section, Freund Schwartz makes the point that hokum has its own authenticity.

“Now you have a large concentration of African-Americans who are developing an urban culture,” she said. “They don’t necessarily want to give up their folkways, their music that was familiar, but they are more sophisticated urbanites now. They don’t want to have it exactly the same way. They hear jazz, boogie-woogie, vaudeville music, and the city style combines elements of all of these different kinds of music that are being constantly swept north by the new waves of migrants into something that fits their new image of themselves.”

Drilling down further, Freund Schwartz writes that purveyors and fans of hokum were engaging in a sort of “resistive discourse” against the black status quo.

In the 1920s, Freund Schwartz

said, leaders of Chicago’s black intelligentsia “felt music based on spirituals and good jazz, like Duke Ellington’s … was of merit and would get white support and recognition. They didn’t necessarily want this double-entendre, countrified, rural throwback music that often played on African-American stereotypes. … So, any embrace of blues is sort of a thumb in the eye, because the blues was really the music of the lower and working classes.”

The research she undertook for the article has continued, and she has begun work on a book on the larger city style phenomenon.

“There has never really been a good name for blues that isn’t country blues and isn’t what we would call classic blues like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey,” Freund Schwartz said, “but there are these other artists that are really hard to classify. They have been too popularly oriented for hard-core blues scholars to be interested in, not jazzy enough for jazz scholars to be interested in, and not pop-oriented enough for people writing about pop music to capture very much of it.”

The book, she said, “will cover from 1924 to 1941 or early 1942, when the nationwide recording strike began.”

■ Rick Hellman

Blues Scholar Debunks Notion Hokum was Inauthentic

19

The trombone trio Drei Bones wants to demonstrate the variety of sounds that the deceptively simple brass instrument is capable of making,

especially when tripled. Michael Davidson, associate professor of trombone, is one of two tenor trombonists in the group that has just released its second CD, Of Hammered Gold (Emeritus Recordings, 2019).

Along with Davidson, the trio includes Mark Thompson of Northwestern State University of Louisiana and Timothy Howe of the University of Missouri-Columbia. Thompson plays the bass trombone, while Davidson and Howe share lead lines.

Their self-titled debut CD was released in 2016 on Sy Brandon’s Emeritus label.

“We wanted to record some gems of the trombone-trio world on the first CD, as well as some new things,” Davidson said.

After traveling and performing music from the first CD for a couple of years, Davidson said, the group commissioned five composers to create works for them this time out: James Mobberley, Thomas Davis, Paul Seitz, John Cheetham, PJ Kelley and Brandon.

There is some original repertoire for trombone trio, but not much. Davidson said, “the second CD was a project to commission, create and record more original music for trombone trio instrumentation.”

Mobberley, the Curators’ Professor of Composition at the University of Missouri-

Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, was nearby in terms of geography, but far out in terms of the contours of his music. He is an angular modernist, renowned for his incorporation of electronic sounds into semi-classical concert music.

“You hear us playing along with some prerecorded sounds he's done,” Davidson said. “It’s really quite an interesting piece.”

Cheetham, on the other hand, has written a scherzo for brass quintet that Davidson says has become a modern standard of the form. The piece he contributed to the new recording, Trialogue, is a technically difficult one that requires “a lot of double-tonguing,” Davidson said.

Marc Lys’ Trois à Troyes, a tribute to the French city, finds “a cool little balance” among pop, rock, jazz and classical styles, Davidson said. “The first movement features Tim on an improvised solo over a walking bass line; the third movement begins with a single melodic line that we have a snippet of – the melody is passed between all three trombone parts, so coordination and timing is the challenge for us here; the fourth movement, Badinage, is just a lyrical ballad.”

Tom Davis is one of two composers featured on both of Drei Bones’ CDs, the other being early 20th-century Russian trombone pedagogue Vladislav Blazhevich.

“Tom Davis was one of the composers on our first CD,” Davidson said. “He and Tim have a good relationship, so we went from there, essentially.”

Davidson said Davis’ Children’s Suite began from setting three of his original piano works, lullabies for his granddaughter, for the

trombone trio.“The two other movements were inspired

by the toys, songs and good times he had with her,” Davidson said. “You can hear Josie burbling away, laughing.”

The recording was the result of some cross-border cooperation in that a grant from the University of Missouri supported the commissions to the composers, while KU chipped in with a faculty research development grant to make the recording at Swarthout Recital Hall.

The tonmeister (a designated set of outside ears who chooses the best take for the recording) for the CD was Davidson’s colleague Scott Watson, longtime KU professor of tuba and euphonium. KU’s Brock Babcock was recording engineer.

In addition, Kelley is a graduate student at KU, studying under Davidson, while Seitz is an adjunct professor of music theory at University of Missouri.

The deal with nonprofit Emeritus to cover other associated costs (mechanical royalties, promotion, digital distribution) and to release the CD came after winning a competitive grant process. The group chose Emeritus founder Brandon’s Dry Bones Fantasy, which Davidson called a variation on James Weldon Johnson’s spiritual “Dem Bones,” to close out the record.

■ Rick Hellman

For an oboe player, the music of the Baroque Period is a logical place to begin recording. That’s what Margaret Marco, professor

of oboe, did with her first solo CD in 2009, Hidden Gems: Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque.

In contrast, her new recording, Still Life, features Marco and several fellow composer/

performer faculty members in a series of new works for solo and chamber ensemble. The recordings

were made on campus, too, at Swarthout Recital Hall, Bales Organ Recital Hall and the studios of Kansas Public Radio.

Despite critics who praise her tone and command of her instrument (she performs with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and other groups), there’s no need for her to re-record the standard classical repertoire for oboe at this point, Marco said.

“The first CD consists of baroque oboe sonatas by little-known French composers,” she said. “In the early 2000s, I got a grant to go to Paris and study the works that are in the Bibliothéque Nationale and found that there were hundreds of works for the oboe that weren't published and weren’t recorded and

probably hadn't been performed in 300 years. So I brought some of the prints home to edit and record.”

In contrast, she said, her latest recording “is all new music.” However, Marco noted, the recordings are alike in that they feature music that hadn't been previously recorded.

“I'm happy with the contribution — to be able to present new pieces to the public and add beautiful, new music to the repertoire,”

TROMBONE TRIO EXPANDS REPERTOIRE ON NEW RECORDING

Margaret Marco Makes New Music for the Oboe

COMPOSER TRIES TO CAPTURE ‘THE MUSIC OF THE WORDS’

“I had this sense of a vast field of stars,” Pierce said, “and then I tried to figure out, ‘How do you get 24 singers to create a pointillistic field of texture over which some kind of timeless, sweeping melody begins to move?’

“And so, from there, it sort of builds itself up piece by piece, like an architect might design a building. You know that there's wall or facade or roof, but you're not thinking necessarily about every individual brick in the wall as you are conceiving of it. So large structures, large gestures, large textures, and then trying to figure out what are the materials that go into that.”

A former pianist and cellist, Pierce has composed nearly 200 works during his career, 50 for voice, including operas, choral works and solo song cycles.

Gratitude Sutra was his commission awarded for the 2012 Barlow Prize in Composition given by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University. The prize requires each year’s winner to use a different instrumentation, and the year Pierce won. It was for a cappella choir.

“There's also a sectional quality to composing, in this piece in particular, where it's almost like a series of rooms that you're moving through, maybe in a gallery,” Pierce said. “I know that in this particular room — the one that's about gratitude to plants — the character and the color, the texture and the structure of this unit is going to be very different from the one for gratitude to the sun. How do they relate to each other across the long arc of the piece, and how do they abut each other in a way that sets off what's really beautiful about both of them?”

Pierce said he’s pleased with how Gratitude Sutra came out. He’s glad he embraced the Snyder text when he did, although he’s since revisited St. Francis in subsequent choral works.

“It seemed to me to be a very humanistic expression of gratitude,” he said, “that we fulfill our unique place in the cosmos, and everything that we encounter deserves our gratitude, regardless of source or origin, just for its self-sameness; just for its uniqueness.”

■ Rick Hellman

Several years ago, when he was supposed to be composing a work on commission, Forrest Pierce came full stop.

“During a period of grief, I found myself unable to compose,” said Pierce, professor of music

composition. “The work I had been attempting, a setting of St. Francis of Assisi's Cantico delle Creature, required too much praise … too much presence for me in my hollow condition.”

Instead, he said, “I found myself thinking of my homeland in the West and the otherworldly wilderness embodied in the writing of Gary Snyder. A poem from Snyder's collection Turtle Island called A Prayer to the Great Family opened a window onto the same universe of beauty revealed by St. Francis. Its words of simple gratitude became a kind of sutra for me, a discourse on the generous beauties that sustain us on this voyage around the sun.”

The 13-minute choral work that emerged from his contemplation, Gratitude Sutra, was recently released on CD by San Francisco-based Volti, a 16- to 24-member chamber choir. The recording of six compositions, most commissioned by Volti, is titled The Color of There, Seen From Here (Innova Records, 2019).

In India’s literary tradition, a sutra is a text composed of a series of aphorisms. Pierce, who hails from eastern Washington, said he has long been an avid poetry reader as well as a seeker of wisdom from Eastern spiritual traditions, and that Snyder’s poem simply came back up in his memory at the appropriate time.

“What happens for me is the text speaks to me,” Pierce said of his typical working method. “I look at the text. I internalize the poem. I oftentimes will memorize the poem, and I'll let the music of the words form their own patterns. Usually rhythms will come to mind, gestures will come to mind, or in the case of some of the texts in this poem, textures — the ways in which all of the different voices will be interacting with each other to create a particular sonic texture."

For instance, Pierce said, in the last movement of Gratitude Sutra, he was very inspired by this one line by Snyder: “Grandfather space, the mind is his wife.”

Marco said. “And that's true about both CDs. It just requires slightly different skills to record music from basically the two bookends, chronologically speaking, of the entire oboe repertoire.”

For the new CD, Marco said, she was inspired by the “many talented composers and my colleagues here” at KU.

“It's almost like ‘let's just get this news out there,’ because this latest CD mostly comprises compositions by composers with ties to Kansas.”

Marco has recorded works by fellow faculty members Ingrid Stolzel, Forrest Pierce and Bryan “Kip” Haaheim, and one by KU doctoral student Bonnie McLarty. The latter features Sarah Anderson singing words penned by former Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.

“The name of the CD, Still Life, is based on Caryn’s poem,” Marco said.

While two of the pieces feature the members of the flute, oboe and piano trio Allegrésse – Lawrence-based flutist and KU alumna Annie Gnojek and KU music lecturer Ellen Sommer on piano – Haaheim’s Circular Ruins features music generated by a computer and by percussionist and recording engineer Jason Slote.

“Contemporary composers often write music that pushes the envelope beyond what is considered normal playing technique,” Marco said. “This causes performers to dig a little deeper and discover new ways of producing sound. Ingrid’s music exploits the sheer beauty of timbre of each instrument she writes for. In combining the acoustic sounds of oboe and percussion with computer-generated sonorities, Kip is creating entirely new sounds for the oboe. The idea of adding computer-generated sounds to live music has been around for

a while, but I’ve never recorded a piece of this nature before. Kip’s is one of the only pieces written for oboe, percussion and computer.”

Furthermore, Marco said, Pierce’s Cathedral Grove calls for “the use of extended techniques.”

“For this work I'm creating sounds that Bach never dreamed could come out of the oboe. The piece explores the extremes of the oboe tessitura. Pierce also calls for timbral trills and multiphonics. It actually sounds quite beautiful. It's not like suddenly the instrument sounds hideous — far from it. It's just like ‘wow, this instrument can make all these sounds that composers before the 20th century never dreamed of.’”

Look for Marco’s Still Life at the end of July on CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and Spotify.

■ Rick Hellman

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FACULTY R

ESEARCH

One of the greatest accolades a music student can receive is being selected as the outstanding music student in their school. Most students, even the ones that ultimately turn out to be super successful, are never recognized in this way. Pianist Delores Stevens, BM ‘ 52, was selected as the outstanding music major in all four years of her studies at the University of Kansas. An early winner of the prestigious Coleman Chamber Music Competition, her career has been a kaleidoscope of endeavors and triumphs, all bringing joy to those who have shared in her music making.

Dee, as she is known to her friends and KU classmates, has performed around the world with some of the most acclaimed musicians of our time. She has taught students of all ages, led piano and chamber music programs at multiple universities, provided artistic leadership for numerous organizations, and premiered new compositions of countless composers. She is featured on no less than 16 difference recording labels. Dee has been honored with the coveted Performer Award from the National Association of Composers, and served multiple terms as governor of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). She is also the mother of Paul Stevens, KU professor of horn.

Here is an excerpt from a recent conversation Dean Robert Walzel had with Stevens in her home in Pacific Palisades, California, near Los Angeles.

RW: How did you first become interested in music?DS: When I was a young girl in Kingman, Kansas, like so many

other young ladies, I wanted to take piano lessons. All of my girlfriends played the piano, so I felt very comfortable with this common interest we all had. I walked every week to the home of Mr. Nichols, who was the local piano teacher, and began my studies. Playing the piano was very natural for me and I progressed rather quickly. I soon started playing more advanced literature and would frequently go to Wichita and other places to play in competitions.

RW: Do you remember your first professional engagement?DS: Yes, of course! I remember when I was 10 or 11 years old, I

was hired to play for this beautiful man singing tenor in a competition held in Dodge City. It was a long distance from our home, and I had to stay overnight in a hotel. Somehow my parents were comfortable with me traveling alone with this person. I still remember the horrible plaid dress that I wore, but he ended up winning the competition, and I was hooked on playing with other performers.

RW: What else might you tell us about your childhood piano experience?

DS: Mr. Nichols died unexpectedly when I was about 12 years old, so I began studying with one of the faculty members at Wichita State University, Mr. [Gordon] Terwilliger. I had to take a bus from Kingman to Wichita, then take a city bus out to the university and wait to take my lesson until after he was finished with his university students. After

all this, I would repeat the bus travels to get home. I was never taken to a lesson, but always made the journey by myself. It is

unthinkable that this would happen in today’s world.RW: You are the daughter of a legendary lawyer and Kansas

politician, Paul R. Wunsch, who undoubtedly could have endeared himself to any number of people with a daughter who was becoming quite an accomplished pianist at a young age. Did you ever find yourself in that situation?

DS: I don’t remember any particular occasions where I was asked to play for anything like that; however, I do remember being in Topeka when Daddy was in session with the Kansas Senate. They let us play the piano in the hotel as much as we wanted to. I remember people hearing us and complementing our playing, but this was very spontaneous and informal. It was all so much fun.

RW: Did your father take an interest in your musical pursuits at KU?DS: Daddy was head of the Kansas Senate and even ran for governor.

I remember one instance when I was a student at KU that we did not have a harpsichord and we needed one. After speaking with Dean Swarthout, I called Daddy and told him we needed a harpsichord. He asked how much this would cost and, lo and behold, there was a line item included in an appropriations bill for KU to acquire a harpsichord. I always believed that Daddy could do anything.

RW: Talk about your studies at KU.DS: I studied piano with Jan Chiapusso (KU faculty 1934-60), who

was an amazing teacher. My lessons were in his office in Strong Hall, but I practiced in a practice room in Hoch Auditorium. I remember taking breaks and going downstairs to watch the Jayhawk basketball team in its workouts. This was particularly fun my senior year, since 1952 was the year they won the NCAA National Championship! I also played violin in the orchestra, which rehearsed in Hoch, but I never studied violin. I did play sonatas with the violin and cello professors, Raymond Cerf and Raymond Stuhl. These opportunities were wonderful experiences for me since we didn’t really have other opportunities for chamber music back then. They were very kind and encouraging, and I never felt intimidated or nervous playing with members of the faculty.

RW: So, after graduation, where did you go and what did you do?DS: Mr. Chiapusso had been to Hawaii for concerts and told me he

thought there would be some opportunities for me there, so off I went. He helped me get a job teaching music at the famous college preparatory Punahou School in Honolulu, the same school that President Obama

Delores Stevens at the piano as a KU student with teacher Jan Chiapusso.

ONE FOR THE AGES:

A Conversation with KU Legend Delores Stevens

21

2019 KU OUTSTANDING MUSIC EDUCATOR NAMEDLindsay Taylor Hatfield, BME ’07, received the KU Outstanding Music Educator Award at the annual Kansas Music Educators Association In-Service Workshop in Wichita in February. Hatfield, pictured with MEMT Chair Chris Johnson, is a music teacher at Schwegler Elementary School in Lawrence. The award is given each year at the KMEA KU Alumni Reunion and the honoree is selected by the KU Music Education faculty.

TUBA-EUPHONIUM STUDIO TO CELEBRATE SCOTT WATSON’S 40TH YEAR AT KUIn celebration of Tuba-Euphonium Professor Scott Watson’s 40th year of teaching at KU, a multitude of events will be planned for a Reunion Weekend on Oct. 18 to 20. Tuba-Euphonium alumni are

invited to join current students for the reunion, which will include a series of alumni concerts: an alumni recital with pianist Ellen Sommer on Friday, Oct. 18; a concert with alumni soloists with the Free State Brass Band on Saturday, Oct. 19 and an Alumni Ensemble and KU Tuba Euphonium Consort concert on Sunday, Oct. 20. To RSVP, email Watson at scwatson@ku.edu or Jarrod Williams at williamsjarr17@ecu.edu.

ALUMNI REUNIONSMark your calendars for upcoming KU School of Music alumni reunions, where you’ll have the opportunity to mingle with current faculty and students and connect with former classmates.

Chicago: Midwest Clinic | Dec. 19

Wichita: Kansas Music Educators Association In-Service Workshop | Feb. 28

attended when he lived there. I also played violin in the Honolulu Symphony, a part time job for which I was paid! While playing in the Honolulu Symphony, I met my husband Jim, who came to our concerts. We have been married 65 years this year.

RW: So, after starting your career in paradise, where did you go from there?

DS: I was in Hawaii for two years. Jim had left the Air Force and gotten a great job at Paramount Pictures, so it was natural for us to settle in the Los Angeles area when we married. I did some piano study with Russian pianist Johanna Graudan, whom I had met when she was on tour playing a concert at KU with her cellist husband. Johanna introduced me to so many people, and I was able to establish some musical connections that ultimately led to professional music opportunities. One interesting thing that Jim and I did early on was to write a musical comedy with one of my other friends.

RW: You and your brother Bob have established an endowment supporting the creation and performance of new musical compositions. Your generosity has allowed the School of Music to establish a new “New Music” festival that will help extend our reputation into some of the most elite music programs in

North America. Talk about how you became interested in performing and commissioning new musical compositions.

DS: Actually, I played for many years with the Montagnana Trio. We had artists management that booked us to play concerts all over the country on the old Community Concert Series and even in Europe. The ten years or so that we were playing together was truly a highlight of my career. Even though the instrumentation of clarinet, cello, and piano has some wonderful repertoire, there is not a large amount of music written for this combination. It was natural for us to commission new works, particularly from lesser known composers who were emerging on the scene. I developed a passion for new music during these years, something that very much continues today for me.

RW: Your career has spanned so many years and encompassed so many different aspects of music and music education. And it started all those years ago in a small Kansas town, progressing through your studies at KU, and continuing today as you prepare for your upcoming concert programs – your 23rd season with Chamber Music Palisades in your home in California and your 49th season leading the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society in your second home in Massachusetts. What advice might you have for young musicians today?

DS: Well it all depends on what they bring to their music. If music is comfortable for them, if they truly love it, if they can’t see themselves doing anything else, then they need to pursue it with everything they have.

RW: Certainly, this is what you have done all your life and continue to do today. You’re an inspiration to so many people, and KU and the School of Music are so very proud of your many accomplishments and contributions to the art of music. Thank you for taking the time to share your memories and thoughts with our readers.

■ Dean Robert Walzel

ALUMNI NEWS

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During the spring semester of 1964, the KU Brass Choir, directed by Kenneth Bloomquist, traveled to Southeast Asia as part of a goodwill tour through the U.S. Department of State’s Cultural Presentation Program. It was a tour remarkable for its lasting influence on the 18 student musicians who participated, and its place in history, set between the assassination of the program’s founder, President John F. Kennedy, and the escalating conflict in the region the following fall.

From Feb. 12 to May 17, the group traveled to Okinawa followed by Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Laos (a last-minute addition to the tour as the group had originally been scheduled to visit Vietnam), Malaysia, Indonesia and concluded in Australia. Accompanying the group was Bloomquist’s wife Ann, an accomplished soprano who had a gift for speaking foreign languages.

Visiting 35 cities and performing 85 concerts in 96 days, the Brass Choir traveled into the heart of Southeast Asia. The students ventured through jungles, mountains, and even to the top of an Indonesian volcano. They visited ancient cities and others that were surprising in their level of

modernity. Everywhere the Brass Choir went, it generated newspaper headlines.

“We traveled five or six hours a day at about 30 miles per hour. You wouldn’t know where you were going. Then we would stop, set-up a stage, people would come out of nowhere and we would play,” said C.L. Snodgrass, a trumpeter on the tour.

In one open air concert in Ceylon, more than 10,000 people attended and for many in the audience it was their first-time seeing Americans.

“People were just fascinated to see and talk to Americans. It wasn’t awkward in any sense; humanity took over and we related quite easily with people,” said Roy Guenther, a trombonist on the tour.

Prior to the trip, Roy Guenther hadn’t traveled further than 400 miles from his home, and that was to see relatives.

“Then all of a sudden you are getting on airplanes and traveling around the world,” Guenther said. “For college kids, it was an unheard-of opportunity and made a great difference in our lives.”

Snodgrass and his then wife Lita Matthews sent their

‘MAGICAL FEELINGS’ REMAIN DECADES AFTER BRASS CHOIR TOURS SOUTHEAST ASIA

Photo by Christine M

etz How

ard

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three children to live with grandparents in Clay Center while on the tour.

“It was tough to be away from the children that long,” Snodgrass said. “But it was certainly an experience that is near the top of the list for things I have enjoyed during my time on earth.”

Kenneth Bloomquist arrived at KU in 1958 as the trumpet professor and assistant director of bands. By 1961, he had organized the KU Brass Choir, which was selected to perform at the National Convention of the Music Educators National Association.

“Word reached the powers that be in the State Department. We sent a recording to them, they came to the campus to visit us, and we were chosen to be among the groups that would be touring in the Cultural Presentation Program,” Bloomquist said.

During the fall o